Achoo. Flinch. Ick.

"Heather, why don't you like spring and summer?? Flip flops, sunshine, and Sangria - what could be better?"

Spring is beautiful, with all the different shades of green gracing the trees and the myriad colored flowers popping up everywhere.
I'll give you that much.

It's really too bad, though, that all that beauty is muffled under a yellow haze of pollen. Right now, it's so thick that even the clouds look yellow.

Achoo.

I often refer to this time of year as "flinching season." From what do I flinch? Hey, look! An excuse to make a list!
I flinch to avoid the following:

• bees
• wasps
• mosquitoes
• yellowjackets
• hornets
• dirt daubers (If you don't know what this is, you ain't Southern.)
• things being blown about by wind gusts
• various projectile sporting equipment
• children whizzing by on any wheeled apparatus

...just to name a few.

Tomorrow, we will enter the second week of April. Temperatures are forecasted to reach 80 degrees. As the next few months come upon us, that number will daily creep higher and higher until opening your front door feels exactly the same as opening your preheated oven door.
Sweat will interrupt sleep.
We will slather ourselves in sunscreen, even just to walk to the car, to avoid instant sunburn and skin cancer.
Sunscreen stinks to high heaven.
People, in summer, stink to high heaven.

Ugh.

There is no amount of Sangria to make up for all that.

Oh, well. I guess all this pollen and all these insects are portentious of tomato sandwiches, cucumber salads, and peach pies in my future.
And, Sangria, of course.
At least there's that.